Neue Oder-Zeitung.  
No. 143, 26 March 1855.  
Midday Edition  

X. London, 23 March. (On the Latest Events in the Crimea.) While the peace negotiations are proceeding in Vienna, the war preparations are going forward in France. The 10 divisions now in the Crimea are to be followed by 4 new ones, of which 2 are to form a reserve army at Constantinople at the beginning of the campaign; one of these divisions will consist of the Imperial Guard, another of the combined elite companies (grenadiers and voltigeurs of the Army of Paris). The two other divisions (the 11th and 12th) are at this moment already being embarked or concentrated at Toulon and Algiers. These fresh reinforcements will bring the French troop strength in the Crimea to 100-110,000 men, while towards the end of April the 15,000 Piedmontese and numerous British reinforcements will arrive. Quite apart from all difficulties of a purely local character, the main objection to this manner of waging war in the Crimea remains that it throws a full quarter of France’s disposable force onto a secondary theatre of war, where even the greatest success decides nothing. The fictitious value that has been attached to the successes and defeats in the Crimea recoils with redoubled force upon the author of the scheme. Sevastopol is far from being Russia for Alexander II, but it has become France for Bonaparte.

As regards the local difficulties, it is clear that the Chersonese, at this moment the graveyard of thousands of men and animals, will with the first ray of sun be transformed into a hothouse of pestilential diseases. Assuming the Allies bring their army up to 150,000 men, the question of provisions in the Crimea—already grazed bare by the Russians and poor in grain—will be all the more difficult to solve, as the Russians will not fail to make the cattle take its retreat in good time and before their own retreat.

As regards the obstacles which the Russian engineers (partly Frenchmen) put in the way of the siege of Sevastopol in particular, the affair of Malakoff supplies an instructive contribution. For about a month the siege, as is known, had come to a standstill, but the arrival of 3 French brigades (one from the 8th and two from the 9th Division) allowed part of the English infantry to be relieved and the trenches to be more strongly occupied. At the same time the arrival of Generals Niel and Jones—the former of the French, the latter of the English engineers—imparted new vigour to the siege operations, and they attempted to remedy mistakes which the obstinacy of the French General Bizot and the numerical weakness of the British infantry had occasioned. New approaches were made, particularly on the English side, where a parallel was opened about 300 yards from the Russian works on the hill of Malakoff. Some of the newly erected batteries advanced so far towards the side of Inkerman that they would have taken part of the Russian batteries in the rear or enfiladed them as soon as their fire could be opened. The Russian lines, as every map shows, extend in a semicircular arc from Quarantine Bay to the inner war harbour and from there to Ship’s Keel Bay. On the western side of the latter stretches a series of heights occupied by the Russians; the most considerable of these heights is the hill of Malakoff, which, by its commanding position, forms the key to the whole Russian right wing. On the east side of the said bay there is another eminence which, being completely under the fire of the Russian batteries and their warships, remained outside the Allies’ reach so long as they could not entirely cut the communication between Sevastopol and Inkerman—a communication which, for its part, was protected by the fire of the forts and batteries on the north side of the harbour. Since, however, the Allies had found, east and south-east of Malakoff, positions for batteries which threatened the Russian lines in the rear and on the flanks, that neutral hill acquired considerable importance. The Russians therefore sent a party of workmen there in the night of 21 February to erect a redoubt upon it. On the following morning the long ditch and a beginning of the breastwork were visible to the Allies. The significance of the Russian works appears to have been unintelligible to them; at least they did not hinder their continuation. The next day, however, the redoubt was finished in its outlines, although still very imperfect as to depth of the ditch and thickness of the breastwork. Now the Allies discovered that this work was admirably situated to enfilade their own enfilading batteries (i.e., those taking the enemy in flank and rear), rendering them as good as useless. The engineers declared that the work must be taken at any price. Canrobert therefore organised, with the greatest secrecy, a storming column consisting of about 1,000 Zouaves and 3,000 naval troops. Since the orders could not be given until a late hour and were unexpected, some time passed before the troops were assembled at their rendezvous, and it was 2 o’clock in the morning (24 February) before they could set out for the assault, the Zouaves at the head. A short march brought them 20 yards from the ditch. As usual in attacks of this kind, not a shot was to be fired; the soldiers had to remove the percussion caps from their muskets in order to prevent useless and time-wasting fire. Suddenly some Russian words of command rang out; a strong body of Russians, inside the redoubt, rose from the ground, laid their rifles on the crest of the breastwork, and threw a volley into the assault column. The Zouaves, scarcely checked by the sloping sides of the unfinished ditch and wall, were in an instant inside the redoubt and fell upon their opponents with the bayonet. A terrible hand-to-hand struggle took place; after some time the Zouaves got possession of half the redoubt, and later the Russians left it entirely to them. Meanwhile the marines, who had followed the Zouaves at a short distance, had either lost their way or halted, for some other reason, on the edge of the hill. Here they were attacked on each flank by a Russian column, which after a desperate resistance drove them down the hill. Meanwhile day was breaking; the Russians withdrew hastily from the hill, leaving the redoubt in the hands of the Zouaves, upon whom the whole Russian artillery that could be brought to bear on this point now opened fire. The Zouaves threw themselves down for a moment, while some riflemen who had accompanied them crept up to the Malakoff works to aim at the Russian gunners through the embrasures. But the fire was too heavy, and the Zouaves soon had to withdraw towards the Inkerman side, where they were mostly covered against the batteries. They claim to have carried off all their wounded. The dispositions of the Russians were so well made that the French declare their whole plan of attack must have been betrayed to them. The Russian attack upon the marines was entirely and almost instantaneously successful, while their withdrawal from the unfinished redoubt exposed the unsupported Zouaves to an overwhelming fire, which had to keep silent as long as the struggle inside the redoubt lasted. General Forey was loudly accused in the French camp of having communicated the secret resolutions of the council of war to the enemy. The Russians, however, maintained their redoubt and have since been busily occupied with its completion. This position is of great importance. It secures the communication with Inkerman and the arrival of supplies from that side. It threatens the entire right of the Allies’ siege works. Finally, with its capture, the Russians have assumed the offensive.